New Figures Reveal Extremist Preachers Widespread on UK Campuses

New research suggests that the prevalence of extremists at UK university campuses has worsened over the past year, with 233 incidents recorded in the 2013 by the pressure group Student Rights.

The organization, which monitors hard-line Islamist speakers as well as far-right activity in the United Kingdom, has revealed that 19 more events “of concern” took place on UK campuses last year, taking the total from 214 in 2012 to 233 in 2013.

The trend, which shows that extremist activity is on the rise on British university campuses, is noteworthy, especially after a concerted effort by campaign groups to halt the practice of gender segregation promoted by Islamist organizations and various student Islamic societies across the country.

At some events monitored by Student Rights, females were instructed that they would be made to sit separately from the men. During at least one event last year, female attendees at a speech given by an external speaker were made to sit in a separate room entirely, allowed only to watch the speech via a televised stream.

In total, of the 233 events noted by Student Rights, 141 were to take place on campuses, while 93 were scheduled off campuses but marketed to UK university students.

Speakers included the former Hizb ut-Tahrir member Hamza Tzortzis, a convert to Islam who has previously expressed support for barbaric punishments such as amputation. Tzortzis has publicly declared, “…we as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom.”

Other regular speakers touring UK campuses include Haitham Al-Haddad, who has been filmed publicly defending terrorist outfit Hamas, and Khalid Fikry, described as a “virulently sectarian speaker” who has claimed that Shia Muslims believe that “raping a Sunni woman is a matter that pleases Allah.”

Some of Britain’s leading universities are reportedly being utilized by extremist speakers, including the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Cambridge, Kings College London (KCL), and the University College London (UCL).

The figures, which are available on the Student Rights website, reveal that 26 of the events in question were canceled due to pressure from external groups or due to tensions on campus caused by the presence of particular individuals.

In October last year, an event featuring a Polish nationalist speaker was canceled due to accusations of homophobia and anti-Semitism, while in June 2013, the City University Islamic Society’s annual dinner was called off after those such as Mozzam Begg and Haitham al-Haddad were discovered to be keynote speakers.

That the situation on campuses across the country is worsening, not improving, is obviously cause for concern. University authorities must intervene in the most extreme cases to ensure that these meetings are openly scrutinized, and that extremist preachers cannot [utilize] taxpayer-funded resources, i.e. university campuses, to proselytize at, or even radicalize students.